The town is part of the historic
MoraviaMoravia region, located directly on
the border with
Lower Austria . In the south, a road border crossing
leads to the neighbouring Austrian municipality of
Drasenhofen . The
highway is part of the
European route E461 and is to be extended as
the R52 expressway .

After the Margraviate of
MoraviaMoravia was established, the settlement of
Nikulsburch was first mentioned in a 1249 deed, issued by the
Přemyslid margrave Ottokar II who granted it, including a castle, and
the surrounding area to the Austrian noble Henry I of Liechtenstein .
In 1262 the possession was confirmed by Ottokar, Bohemian king since
1253. After King
Rudolf I of Germany had defeated Ottokar at the 1278
Battle on the Marchfeld , he vested Henry II of Liechtenstein with
market rights in villa Nicolspurch. German citizens were called in and
lived there until their expulsion in 1945 according to the Beneš
decrees .

In 1526, the Anabaptist leader
Balthasar Hubmaier came from
Switzerland to Nikolsburg, where he was captured and arrested by the
forces of the Habsburg king Ferdinand I in the following year. The
town remained in the Liechtenstein family until 1560, and in 1572
Emperor Maximilian II granted the fief to his ambassador to the
Spanish court Adam von
Dietrichstein . From 1575 until the 20th
century, Nikolsburg remained the proprietary possession of the
Dietrichstein noble family and its
Mensdorff-Pouilly successors.

After a fire damaged the original Nikolsburg Castle in 1719, the
Dietrichstein family reconstructed the château to its present
appearance. After the
Austro-Prussian War , Count Alajos Károlyi
began work on a peace treaty in Nikolsburg that led to the Treaty of
PraguePrague in 1866.

The beginning of the Jewish settlement in Nikolsburg dates as far as
1421, when Jews were expelled from
ViennaVienna and the neighboring province
of
Lower Austria by the duke of Austria,
Albert II of Germany . The
refugees settled in the town situated close to the Austrian border,
some 85 kilometres (53 miles) from the Austrian capital, under the
protection of the princes of Liechtenstein, and additional settlers
were brought after the expulsions of the Jews from the Moravian royal
boroughs by the king
Ladislaus the PosthumousLadislaus the Posthumous after 1454.

The settlement grew in importance and in the first half of the 16th
century when Nikolsburg became the seat of the regional rabbi of
MoraviaMoravia , thus becoming a cultural centre of Moravian Jewry. The
famous rabbi
Judah Loew ben BezalelJudah Loew ben Bezalel (1525 – 1609), who is said to
have created the golem of
PraguePrague , officiated here for twenty years as
the second regional rabbi between 1553 and 1573. Cardinal Franz von
Dietrichstein , son of Adam von Dietrichstein, was a special protector
of the Jews, whose taxes were necessary to finance the Thirty Years'
War.

In the first half of the 18th century the congregation in Nikolsburg
totalled over 600 families, being the largest Jewish settlement in
MoraviaMoravia . The census of 1754 decreed by Empress Maria Theresa of
AustriaAustria ascertained that there were some 620 families established in
Nikolsburg, i.e. the Jewish population of about 3,000 comprised half
of the town‘s inhabitants. It is obvious that only a small number
of Jews could make their living in the town as artisans; the rest had
to become merchants. The congregation suffered severely during the
Silesian wars (1740–1742, 1744–1745 and 1756–1763), when they
had to furnish the monarchy with their share in the supertaxes exacted
by the government of Maria Theresa from the Jews of Moravia.

Quite a number of Nikolsburg Jews continued to earn their livelihood
in Vienna, where they were permitted to stay for some time on special
passports. The freedom of residence, which was conceded to the Jews in
AustriaAustria in 1848, reduced the number of resident Jews in Nikolsburg to
less than one-third of the population which it contained at the time
of its highest development. In 1904, there were 749 Jewish residents
in the city, out of a total population of 8,192. In 1938, prior to
the
German occupation of Czechoslovakia , the city population totaled
about 8,000 mostly German-speaking inhabitants. Out of these, 472 were
Jewish at this time. The Jewish settlement in Nikolsburg ceased to
exist during World War II, as only 110 managed to emigrate in time,
and 327 of Mikulov's Jews did not survive the Holocaust .

Following World War II, the town's German population was brutally
expelled between 1945-46 by the Czech Communist Government. In 1948,
Mikulov's population was around 5,200.

DEMOGRAPHICS

St. Sebastian Chapel on the Holy Hill (Svatý Kopeček)

Census year
Population
Ethnicity of inhabitants

year
German
Czechs
other

1793
7440

1836
8421

1869
7173

1880
7642
7447
144
61

1890
8210
8057
79
74

1900
8092
7843
170
79

1910
8043
7787
189
67

1921
7699
6359
626
485

1930
7790
6409
898
483

1939
7886

ECONOMY

MikulovMikulov is a centre of Czech wine-making due to its favorable
geographic location and climate, as well as its unique history.
MikulovMikulov is not only the centre, but the namesake of, the Moravian wine
sub-region vinarská podoblast Mikulovská . Twelve registered
cadastral vineyard tracts (Czech: trat) are situated within the
MikulovMikulov wine village as defined under the Czech Viticulture Act.
Other significant economic activities in
MikulovMikulov are the
machine-making and clay industries, as well as oil found at the edge
of the
Viennese Basin .

LANDMARKS

Mikulov's historic buildings, such as
MikulovMikulov Castle, and the
surrounding wine country draw tourists from the
Czech RepublicCzech Republic and
neighboring countries. Beginning in Mikulov, the 65 kilometer long
MikulovMikulov Wine Trail winds throughout the
MikulovMikulov wine region and is a
part of wine tourism in the area. Other noteworthy historic sights are
the
Dietrichstein sepulchre, the old Jewish Quarter , and the Piarist
College. Several historic churches and a synagogue, built in various
architectural styles, are located in Mikulov, including the Romanesque
Church of St. Václav and charnel house, the
Baroque Church of St.
John the Baptist, St. Sebastian Chapel on the Holy Hill (Svatý
Kopeček), the neo-Gothic Eastern Christian Church of St. Nicolas, and
the Altschul Synagogue.